Git Pull

The git pull command is used to fetch and integrate changes from a remote repository into your current branch in your local repository.

Depending on your configuration, git pull can be thought of as a combination of two commands:

git fetch

Followed by either:

git merge or git rebase

The decision whether Git will fast-forward, merge, or rebase new commits in your current branch will be determined by whether your local branch is commits ahead of the remote, and which options have been set:

git pull --ff-only will fail if the branches have diverged.

git pull --no-rebase will perform a merge if the branches have diverged (this is the default).

git pull --rebase will perform a rebase if the branches have diverged.

Alternatively, you can set the pull.rebase configuration option in your Git configuration, which will make all further pulls default to using rebase.

Note

• Using git pull with merge will create a new merge commit if there are new commits on both the remote branch and your local branch.
• If you have uncommitted changes in your working directory, git pull may fail unless you stash or commit those changes first.
• If there are conflicting changes between the remote branch and your local branch, you Working Directory will be left in a Merging status. You will need to use a tool like SmartGit Conflict Resolver to resolve conflicts before completing the merge or rebase.